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Game Slave 2
"Game Slave 2" is the 2nd segment in the 12th episode of the first season of Invader Zim. It first premiered on September 21, 2001, on Nickelodeon. Plot Summary When Gaz sees a TV ad for the new handheld gaming console, Game Slave 2, she gets obsessed with getting it. However, when Professor Membrane insists she takes Dib to the mall with her, Gaz is forced to wait until he finishes a new episode of Mysterious Mysteries. This causes them to arrive late, leaving Gaz at the end of a long line. Gaz is of course angry at this, and she decides to get Dib out of her hair by convincing him that she saw a chupacabra in the underground parking lot. When she's finally alone without any annoyances, Gaz waits in line for her Game Slave 2. However, she ends up standing just in front of Iggins, an irritating, loud-mouthed, and hyperactive boy who constantly brags about his video gaming prowess. After a long while, forced to listen to Iggins’ nonstop babbling, Gaz finally reaches the counter, where she's told that there's only one copy of the Game Slave 2 left that someone has pre-ordered, but they haven't shown up yet. The salesman tells Gaz that she can have the game if the boy who pre-ordered it doesn’t show up to claim it. Suddenly, overhearing this, Iggins quickly cuts in and claims to be the boy who pre-ordered it, and he takes the game. Gaz seeks revenge by unleashing her terrifying wrath on him, stalking Iggins to his house. Meanwhile, deep underground, Dib finally realizes that there's no chupacabra. Now, he has to escape the underground parking lot, for, while he's there, he meets a colony of rat people. Fortunately for Dib, he locates the exit of the garage. Back at Iggins' house, he's started enjoying his new game, but soon he finds himself being ruthlessly stalked by Gaz, whom he desperately tries to escape. She threatens him to hand over the Game Slave 2, but he refuses, and he hides from her. Unfortunately, the batteries on his Game Slave 2 begin to run out. Panicking like never before, Iggins runs through his house, searching for new batteries to power his game, but he can't find any. Finally, he looks in the bathroom, where he finds Gaz with all the batteries in the house, collected in a plastic bag, which she holds over the toilet. She threatens to flush them away, unless Iggins gives Gaz the Game Slave 2. But Iggins refuses, and Gaz follows through with her threat, shorting out the batteries in the toilet's water. Absolutely frantic now, Iggins rushes to a battery store. But, when he gets to the elevator, he presses the button too many times, and he shoots to the top of the building. Gaz is already waiting for him on the roof, somehow reaching it before he got there, and she enters the elevator before Iggins can escape again. Once more, Gaz offers Iggins money for the Game Slave 2, saying that it's rightfully hers. But when he refuses again, Gaz scares him by smashing the elevator's controls, plunging them downwards. Terrified of Gaz, Iggins finally gives in and gives her the Game Slave 2. Gaz stops the elevator from falling, puts batteries into her Game Slave 2, and starts playing the game. Her wrath is visibly lifted as the rain stops falling, and the dark purple sky lightens. But Iggins is still convinced that he's the better gamer, and he proceeds to tell Gaz that yet again. Suddenly, the elevator cable snaps, causing both the elevator and Iggins to take a fifty-story plunge to the ground below. A little while later, Dib walks by the wreckage, confused. But, as soon as he's out of sight, Iggins literally flies out of the crashed elevator, unharmed, with his usual sinisterly deranged grin and bulging eyes. Facts of Doom Cultural References *In this episode, there was a game entitled Vampire Piggy Hunter. The character slightly resembles Vampire Hunter D, a popular Japanese anime and literary character. *The episode was written as a parody to the respective launches of the then upcoming PlayStation 2 and Xbox. *The "I was once a man." line said by one of the rat people is a reference from G.I. Joe: The Movie, originally uttered by a mutant Cobra Commander. *The scenes in which Gaz terrifies and chases Iggins are possibly a reference to the classic Japanese horror film Ring. Interestingly, an American remake entitled The Ring was released in 2002, one year after this episode's airing and two months before the release of the series finale "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever". *The Game Slave 2's appearance vaguely resembles the Nintendo DS, despite the latter being released around 2004, two years after Invader Zim's cancellation in 2002. Trivia *This is the second episode where Zim doesn't appear or is even mentioned, The first being “Battle-Dib”. *This is one of Jhonen Vasquez's favorite episodes from Season 1, along with "Bolognius Maximus". However, this is one of Richard Steven Horvitz's least favorite episodes, along with "The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot" and "Battle-Dib", because none of them feature Zim. *The Vampire Piggy Hunter resembles a taller version of Zim. *The horrible Rat People being doomed by staying in a parking garage may have been a foreshadowing to what would eventually become of planet Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat People, which happened in the following episode, "Battle of the Planets". *When Iggins is running through his house, trying to avoid Gaz, he passes a poster on his wall which has the word "obey" written on it over a picture of a fist. This is most likely a reference to the episode "Career Day" in which Zim shouts "obey the fist" to one of his classmates. Changes and Cuts *Originally, the episode's title and the Game Slave 2 itself were supposed to be Game Slave Advance. Because it sounded too similar to the existing Game Boy Advance, which was recently released in North America and Europe at the time, it had to be changed. *Iggins was supposed to be killed off in the scene where he fell fifty floors downwards into the parking lot where Dib was, and have the ending be Dib turning into a rat person. Due to Nickelodeon prohibiting deaths, the scene had to show Iggins alive by flying out of the elevator unscathed and Dib just simply walking past the destroyed elevator, completely normal. *This also disallowed Dib turning into a rat person as Jhonen had envisioned. Concept art of Dib as a rat person can be found on Aaron Alexovich's websitehttp://www.heartshapedskull.com/bio/ as well as the DVD "Progressive Stupidity" animatics. Things You Might Have Missed *You can see Bloody GIR when all the pigs are shot down in the beginning. *There is a poster above Iggins's toilet that says "No miss fires". *When Dib is talking with the rat people about the exit, the exit is right behind him. *The guard who puts the kids on the zip line to exit the mall is named Peaches, according to his name tag. *The cashier at the battery store bears a strong resemblance to Tess from I Feel Sick. Kathryn Fiore provides her voice. See also *Game Slave *Game Slave 2 (Transcript) *Game Slave 2 Screenshots References es:El esclavo del juego 2 Category:Season 1 Category:Episodes Category:Altered Episodes Category:Screenshots